Monday, April 11, 2011

Is This a New Fertility Option?

Frozen Donor Eggs Could Give Women More Pregnancy Options

Good news on the infertility front: New research confirms frozen donor eggs may work just as well as fresh ones, increasing options and possibly driving down costs for women hoping to get pregnant, Reuters reports.

The findings also suggest freezing donor eggs -- or your own -- could be a viable option for young women hoping to postpone baby-making for the future, according to the news service.

Researchers at a fertility clinic in Cyprus studied 77 women who had received donor eggs from other women that had been frozen, and discovered they were just as likely to have a baby as women given fresh frozen donor eggs, Reuters reports.

The results were almost equal. Forty-seven percent of the women gave birth, versus 41.5 percent of the fresh-egg group -- a difference that could have been due just to chance, the researchers report in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

The findings support growing evidence that egg-freezing, a relatively new technology, can work whether it's a woman's own eggs or a donor's eggs, Dr. Nicole Noyes, who co-directs the egg-cryopreservation program at the New York University Fertility Center, tells Reuters.

"This is more positive reinforcement that egg-freezing is here," Noyes tells the news service.

Another goal is to allow women to freeze their own eggs.

"If you're 36, and you know you won't have a baby before you're 38 because you're in med school, then it might be a good idea," Noyes tells Reuters.

The findings support the growth of "egg banks," akin to sperm banks, where one donor's eggs can be frozen and given to multiple recipients, according to the news service.

Frozen eggs improve the number of options for women, because there are some drawbacks to fresh egg donations, Dr. Xiao Zhang, scientific director of the Cork Fertility Center in Ireland and the senior researcher for the study, tells Reuters.

One is coordination, Zhang tells the news service. That is, the recipient's uterus must be ready to receive the eggs at the same time the donor is ready to have her eggs harvested.